


Triptych

by Angela



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Canon - Anime, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 17:52:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16454597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angela/pseuds/Angela
Summary: Ash and Shorter won't let themselves see that their relationship has fractures. Not until Eiji shows up.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is set very securely in the anime canon. Not only does Shorter keep the mohawk, but I feel like it's the subtle differences in character portrayed in the anime that allows a poly relationship to work at all for me. Strange as it might seem, manga Shorter reads almost entirely straight to me, while anime Shorter is most definitely bi. But this allows a very different creative path from what I've been walking, one I've explored here.

Shorter moves fast. No consequences. He just throws himself all in. At first it made Ash uneasy, not believing all that touching could be harmless.

But it is. The girl – sometimes a boy, but more often not – will let her body melt against Shorter’s, even when people are watching. She’ll kiss back. Cling. Eventually they’ll disappear together, to her apartment or just someplace where deep shadows mimic privacy. Shorter’s hand tucks in her back pocket and hers find skin – arm, hip – and that’s the last anyone sees.

No drama. No repeats. It’s one of the many reasons Ash has been with him so long. It’s how they work. Shorter thrives on physicality: skin and sweat and friction, and Ash isn’t the jealous type.

Until Eiji.

Ash wakes thirsty, disoriented and half-expecting to be on that narrow top bunk, Max Lobo snoring below. The room is dead silent; a streetlamp glows through the dirty window, illuminating an empty bed. A frisson of worry makes Ash’s skin tingle – Eiji’s not the nocturnal sort. His rumpled bedding and empty water glass suggest a harmless trip to the bathroom, but unease prickles Ash’s neck nonetheless.

He investigates, passing the dark bathroom, into the living room. Beyond, the green-violet glow of weak fluorescent light hums from the kitchen. 

Relief washes over Ash and he steps carefully through the dark room. He imagines Eiji at the refrigerator, suspiciously eyeing the devil’s choice of dried-out cheese or an open can of water chestnuts. The murmuring sound of voices slows Ash’s pace. Shorter’s throaty chuckle paralyzes him.

In the darkness beyond the doorway, an anxious, awful feeling roils in his stomach.

It’s not like Ash hasn’t seen Shorter in exactly that position a dozen times before. He’d even jokingly suggested that it was suspicious that the counters at Chang Dai were exactly the right height for Shorter’s fooling around. But it had never been Eiji perched on the scratched counter top, never been Eiji’s thighs accommodating Shorter’s narrow hips.

Ash wants to look away but – Shorter’s muscled torso, Eiji’s lean, strong legs, fingers deep in bright purple hair. Eiji wears that staid blue button-down thrown on over tiny white briefs – an attempt at modesty? – but Shorter has it halfway down Eiji’s arms. His teeth nip Eiji’s bared shoulders. 

Shorter had always been tall and broad, but lately he’s filled out in ways that leave Ash dry-mouthed and miserable. Eiji makes a noise, a gasp with the barest hint of his voice behind it. Ash closes his eyes, trying to quell simultaneous waves of arousal and revulsion, always entangled. 

Backing into the hallway, he escapes before he sees too much, before hands slide beneath fabric and mouths become occupied in more than just kisses. In the bedroom, Ash’s breath is ragged, his blood rushing. Why Eiji? He’s not some stranger whose name Shorter can carelessly forget in a day. When the sun comes up, Eiji will still be there. 

Ash doesn’t want to think about what that might mean.

 

Shorter’s not into virginity. In fact, the last virgin in his bed was himself at thirteen. He likes to have fun and virgins aren’t worth the trouble. Until now. 

Eiji defies stereotypes. For starters, he isn’t shy about his body. It’s not a body anyone would be ashamed of – an open button-down shirt over tighty-whities made that abundantly clear the moment he walked into the kitchen. He doesn’t seem to mind Shorter looking.

Eiji fascinates him. Every emotion, every _sensation,_ seems to shine in Eiji’s face like a digital billboard. Shorter loves it.

“Hungry?” He asks from the table. He gave up trying to sleep around midnight.

Eiji grimaces into the fridge. “Nothing here,” he says. “You could not sleep?”

Shorter gets up close, reaching around Eiji to grab a beer. “Don’t sleep much,” he says. “You?”

Eiji doesn’t shy away, though Shorter is close enough to feel heat off his skin. He raises an eyebrow at Shorter’s beer. “I feel bad for Ibe-san,” he confesses.

The bottle opener is on the counter behind Eiji. Shorter smirks, reaching for it. His chest brushes Eiji’s, snags his shirt. There’s an instant of electric skin-to-skin contact. Shorter plays it cool. Eiji – still the flashing billboard – can’t keep his breath.

Shorter pops open his beer, swigs. “I can distract you.” His voice pitches low, earnest. He wants this, even more than he realized.

Eiji’s pupils visibly dilate; Shorter interprets it as yes. 

Eiji’s mouth meets him halfway, hungry. Not virginal. Shorter presses his palm against the small of his back, pulling in and up and those tighty-whities are a whole lot tighter and this isn’t just a kiss and probably won’t be just a fuck. Shorter hasn’t felt this way since that time with Ash. 

_Goddamn._

He pulls back, gasping. “This happening?” he asks roughly, hands on Eiji’s shoulders. “If I’m gonna walk, it’s gotta be right now.”

Eiji’s fingers tangle Shorter’s mohawk. Lips part. Eyes narrow. Adam’s apple bobs as he works up the nerve. The threads of Shorter’s control snap, one-by-one until he’s not sure what he’ll do if Eiji says no. 

A whisper. “Yes.”

 _Yes._ Hands find skin, teeth nip. Shorter lifts Eiji onto the counter; something topples into the sink, splashes. Eiji huffs a soft laugh, his face bright with joy, and Shorter is done in.

“You make me crazy,” he murmurs across Eiji’s mouth.

“Do I?” His hand slips low, his question turning coy as fingertips brush across the front of Shorter’s boxers.

A shudder of pleasure. Shorter laughs; this makes him happy. Eiji makes him happy. 

Movement in the other room – Ash. Shorter feels him watching. For a moment Shorter’s focus splits and his mind is caught up by the boy in the darkness. 

Ash has never watched.

Then Eiji’s mouth is back on his, legs wrapping around him. Ash vanishes.

“My room?” There will be time in the morning for reckoning. Eiji nods, blushes, and for the second time in his life, Shorter falls in love.

 

Light slants pale and grey through a slit in the window shade. Eiji lifts his head from the pillow of Shorter’s shoulder, feeling sticky with sweat and – other things. Sticky, but good, good in a languid, heavy sort of way. Shorter shifts beneath him, untangling arms and legs and running one hand through his wildly-out-of-sorts hair.

He smiles at Eiji, his almond eyes nearly all pupil in the near-darkness. “You’re in love with Ash,” he says.

Not an accusation, not a question. And not wholly unexpected, though Eiji had imagined them dancing around the subject at first. “So are you,” he counters in a soft voice. This isn’t an argument – it isn’t even heated – just an exchange of facts. “And he loves you.”

For the hundredth time since that first kiss, Eiji wonders exactly what’s happening here, and why it feels okay. Better than okay, It feels right. He runs a hand over Shorter’s shoulder, down his arm, unable to resist touching him, even after hours of indulging in just that.

Shorter sighs, closing his eyes. One hand snakes up, cupping the back of Eiji’s head and tugging him down for a kiss. “He loves you, too, you know,” Shorter tells him after.

The words pick at a knot in Eiji’s chest. “I know.”

“He told you?” Shorter sits suddenly, the bed springs protesting. “When did he tell you that?” 

Eiji doesn’t know if he’s jealous or just surprised. It wouldn’t be unreasonable, being jealous. A new, sharper version of loneliness stabs at Eiji whenever he thinks of Ash and Shorter having all those years together before he even knew them. That’s a kind of jealousy, he supposes.

“He didn’t have to say.” Ash’s feelings are something that Eiji just knows. It would be hard to explain if he had to, but he and Ash have an understanding – unspoken, but mutual and clearly known to both. 

“So why… this?”

Shorter’s question tightens the knot beneath Eiji’s ribs. “Because,” he begins, then falters. Shorter Wong is devastating, Eiji’s persistent high school fantasy come to life, plus wild purple hair and an unbearably hot eyebrow piercing. But he can’t say that, can’t reduce this to sex when it’s so much more. But words aren’t his strength. He reaches out, traces a pale scar that jags across Shorter’s ribs. “Because, it’s you.” 

He hopes Shorter understands.

The whole bed trembles when Shorter flops back onto the pillows, his hands tucked behind his head. For a long moment he stares up at the cracked ceiling, not minding or even noticing that the sheet has slipped dangerously low on his hips. “Ash is gonna be pissed,” he says at last, his voice resigned.

It hurts to wonder exactly how Shorter means it. Eiji hopes Ash doesn’t misunderstand, doesn’t see this as a betrayal.

Shorter gathers Eiji up in his arms, pulls the sheet over them both. “Sleep,” he urges, kissing the top of his head. “We might as well. Ash won’t be up for hours.”


	2. Chapter 2

Ash is amazed how far apart three people can manage to get in a 700 square-foot apartment. He’s in the bedroom, re-reading the same three paragraphs, pretending he’s not listening to Shorter banging around the kitchen, to Eiji talking to the television in Japanese. They seem to be keeping their distance, from each other as well as him. Ash would be grateful, but he’s busy being pissed.

It’s a surprise then, when Shorter flings himself onto Eiji’s empty bed. He nudges Ash’s mattress with his bare foot. “Hey.”

Ash doesn’t like the casual tone. He doesn’t like Shorter pretending with him. He keeps his eyes on his book. 

Shorter flops back against the pillows. “I haven’t broken any of our rules,” he says after a long silence. “No repeats.” Neither of them acknowledge the unspoken _yet._

“No drama,” Ash reminds him.

Shorter pushes up on his elbows, looks around the quiet room. “Is Eiji being dramatic? Am I?” His voice is exaggerated innocence. Ash wants to pop him in the mouth.

When he doesn’t answer, Shorter gets impatient. “I’m serious,” though he’s never been serious a day in his life. He nudges the mattress again.

Ash growls. “You fucking know how I feel about him.”

“Do I?” Shorter raises one defiant eyebrow. “Funny, you didn’t say.”

When Ash refuses respond, Shorter sits up, his long legs filling the narrow space between the beds. He leans on one arm, the casual position belied by the tightening of his mouth. “You’re calling foul. Not because I slept with another guy, but because it’s the guy you have feelings for? Can you even see how fucked up that is?”

And how fucked up is it that he regularly goes home with strangers? Once it was clear that Ash wasn’t able to handle Shorter’s physical needs, he’d been the one to suggest the arrangement. But he didn’t like it. Now he likes it less.

“What’s gonna happen tonight?” Ash demands. He sits up, his face only inches from Shorter’s, their knees almost bumping. “Are you and Eiji gonna go to bed in your separate rooms, pretending none of this happened? I don’t think so. I saw how you were with him.” 

He gives Shorter a moment to deny it. Nothing. 

“No repeats, Shorter. Or are you gonna throw this away for some meaningless sex?” Ash knows how he sounds, that he pronounces “sex” the in the same tone someone might use for “vomit” or “dog shit.” He hates it, but he can’t help it.

The pause before Shorter answers is a fraction too long. “It isn’t meaningless. Not for either of us.”

The words knock the wind from his chest. Ash has had bullets hurt less. “I see.”

“You don’t!”

“Please.” He wants Shorter to go away, to leave Ash in the ruins. “Just go.”

Shorter grabs his shoulder. “Just listen to me, dammit.” His voice shakes, on the edge of breaking. 

If he breaks, Ash will shatter. “Get out!” he snarls.

He does.

 

It’s supposed to be obvious. Shorter buttons his jeans, runs a towel over damp hair. _Eiji and Shorter._ He clears a spot in the mirror. _Shorter and Ash. Ash and Eiji._ His eyes are red – burned by soap and then the tears that didn’t stop even after the sting faded – but he has shades for that. 

There’s a deep purple love bite just below his ribs – territory marked, binding. Eiji was more ardent than he’d expected. The memory inspires a wave of longing. They’d spent hours touching, exploring, but still it wasn’t enough, might never be. He almost regrets washing Eiji’s scent from his skin, but scalding water and steam help untangle the knots inside.

Ash might break up with him. Maybe he already has; Shorter doesn’t know. The whole world is tilted, and Shorter feels like they’ll all slide right off. Everything is ruined because Ash is too hardheaded to listen. Because of Shorter’s selfishness and Eiji’s soft, beautiful mouth.

Ash thinks sex is all animal instinct and base urges, and most of the time Shorter wouldn’t disagree. But he’s sick to death of anonymous hookups. He doesn’t want just to fuck anymore; he wants intimacy. He wants Ash – he’s always wanted Ash – even when that longing shames him.

Eiji isn’t Ash, but it isn’t just sex between them, either. For the first time in years, Shorter feels known. He never wants to let go of that feeling.

Shorter only ever noticed Eiji – really looked at him – because of Ash. Ash had tried desperately to hide his feelings – from Shorter and from himself. It was useless. In just minutes, Shorter knew his boyfriend was in love. Swallowing that first surge of possessive jealousy, Shorter took a second look at the Japanese boy. Then a third and fourth. Ash was clearly onto something – no matter how he considered it, Eiji was special.

He slides on his sunglasses, immediately less exposed, less vulnerable. This shitty apartment didn’t come with a blow dryer, so his hair droops to one side, dripping the occasional violet raindrop down his bare shoulder. 

He needs to try again.

Ash has always taken extra effort. Everything worth having is worth working for – Nadia drilled that into him before he was ten. He’s terrified it won’t be enough.

The bedroom door is ajar. Through the three-inch gap, Shorter sees.

Eiji leans down, hesitates. Ash is still, even as Eiji’s fingers trace the line of his jaw, tilting it up, just a fraction. The perfect angle for a kiss. Shorter’s chest tightens. He waits for the fallout. Ash isn’t good with touch. He tries, but even between them, kisses are rare.

But he doesn’t snarl at Eiji. He doesn’t yank away, triggered, or simply dodge the contact. 

Ash _melts._

His mouth goes soft, pliable. He reaches out, cupping the back of Eiji’s neck, stroking his skin.

Longing engulfs Shorter. For Ash. For Eiji. For this sorcery between them. His fingers curl around the doorjamb. His breath stutters. He hopes.

 

Eiji slips into the bedroom after Shorter leaves. He’d heard enough to know that it’s time to be completely honest. Ash is on the bed, staring at the ceiling. His eyes flick momentarily toward Eiji, then away.

That stings. 

Shorter said Ash would be angry. Eiji’s seen him angry before – this heavy quiet is not that.

He knows what to say – he’s been mulling over it all day – but even in Japanese, the words would come hard. In English, they feel impossible. “I know that you are… with Shorter.” When Ash doesn’t react, he continues. “And I know that you and he do not...” This time he can’t say more. Heat engulfs him.

“That what he told you?” Ash’s voice is gruff; he still won’t meet Eiji’s eyes.

“No.” Shorter didn’t talk about his relationship with Ash, but their feelings are palpable, connecting them. Eiji walks to the window, looks out. His next words seem to stick in his chest. “Hurting you, it’s the last thing I want.” A knot squeezes his heart, but he forces himself to say it all. “I want Shorter, but not–” he takes a deep breath. “Not without you.” 

Ash makes a noise. Surprise, or disbelief. Eiji watches his reflection in the window, afraid to turn around, afraid of what Ash might say. Mirror-Ash looks up, stares at him for a long, expressionless moment. “That’s not how this works,” he says at last, sandpaper-rough.

“Why not?” Indignation steadies Eiji’s voice. He’d expected this. Planned it. “It’s how we all feel.” It’s not just a guess. He knows. 

Ash goes still.

Eiji turns, finally brave enough to look at him directly, to move to the bed. To sit.

He’s close; Eiji can feel the heat of him. He reaches up, but stops millimeters from Ash’s cheek. “May I?” he asks.

Emotion crackles across Ash’s face. He nods shortly, closing his eyes when Eiji’s fingertips brush his skin. “No one in my whole life ever thought to ask,” Ash mumbles. “Not even Shorter.”

Eiji cups his jaw, tilts it so he can look into his eyes. “I will always, always ask,” he promises. “Can I–” he falters, unsure of this bold new path, “kiss you?” 

Eiji doesn’t know much about kissing. Ash’s kiss before, Shorter’s last night, none of them were gentle. But he knows he needs to be careful. When Ash says yes, he keeps his lips soft. He tries to bring every tender emotion to mind, holding back desire.

Ash’s hands slide up, cupping his neck. His lips part; Eiji resists the urge to plunder. He must take nothing, promise everything.

Afterward, Ash’s warm fingers linger on his skin. Eiji aches to kiss him again. Resists.

“You,” Ash says slowly, “me, and Shorter?”

Eiji nods. “If that’s okay.”

He smiles.

Suddenly Shorter bounds onto the bed, squishing Eiji even closer to Ash. “Three is cool?”

Ash looks at Eiji’s grin, takes off Shorter’s sunglasses. “Yeah,” he concedes, meeting his eyes. “Three is cool.”


	3. Chapter 3

Things change. Not the lightning-quick friends-to-lovers magic trick Shorter pulled that first night, but something subtle and real. Like the slow spill of sunlight across the sky at dawn, Ash can’t say exactly when it happened – the sky’s the same from one instant to the next – but suddenly he can see colors and it’s undeniably morning.

Undeniable. That’s how it feels when Eiji grins at him across the breakfast table, bed-headed and sleepy-eyed. Shorter kisses him over toast, tossing a conspiratorial wink at Ash. 

The resulting lump in Ash’s throat is ninety percent happiness.

They’re busy now, hatching a desperate plan to end Golzine’s life in the very place he’d hijacked Ash’s six years before. Ash has no desire to go back to Club Cod – even saying the name cracks open the shell of some dark thing inside him – but he’s high on urgency and out of options.

“I still don’t think Eiji should come with us tomorrow,” Ash says.

Shorter’s indignant. “And I refuse to leave him behind!”

Eiji laughs weakly. “I said I can drive!”

“No!” Ash and Shorter insist together. The plan calls for recklessness; neither wants to put Eiji in the dangerous position of driving through a crowd.

It’s useless to discuss it anyway – the plans are set. Thirty-six hours until he can put a slug in Dino Golzine’s skull. Ash is restless.

He’s checked the guns three times, each time imagining new ways for the Lees to double cross. He’s marked their path on the map, insisting Shorter go over every contingency, every alternate route. “We’ve got this, Ash,” Shorter tells him gently, one hand low on his back. “Relax. Try to read or something.”

He tries. He finds a comfortable spot on the threadbare couch, opens his book. He hears Shorter and Eiji in the kitchen, ostensibly preparing lunch, though murmurs and soft laughter say otherwise. Once again, Ash finds himself staring at the same page, though this time it isn’t rage or jealousy distracting him. It’s envy. Curiosity.

Desire.

Ash knows arousal – it’s a physical thing, unrelated to his mental state and usually unwelcome. Once, with Shorter, there’d been desire: the desire to please, to be normal, the desire to be everything Shorter needed. It had gone badly; Ash doesn’t remember often.

Now Ash can think only of what he saw the other night, what he’s imagined since then. 

He wouldn’t be unwelcome. Ash knows this, knows he can walk into the kitchen, put his arms around Shorter. Kiss Eiji. Trace the muscles that have become so distracting lately. Shorter would grin, plant a kiss on his temple and say he’s wished for this. Eiji would unfurl beneath him, treat him like a fragile, treasured thing.

Ash isn’t afraid of rejection.

But he can’t move. Even when the murmurs turn into sighs and then the food burns and Shorter curses in Cantonese while Eiji only laughs. Ash wants to be in there. Ash _wants._

He isn’t afraid of rejection. But he _is_ afraid.

 

When Eiji takes a shower, Shorter steals a moment with Ash. He sits by him at the table, his hand deliberately close enough for Ash to reach without effort. “Your plan is reckless. We might not make it back.”

Ash looks down, hooks his his pinkie around Shorter’s. Lips twitch into a frown. “I’ll do it alone.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” Shorter entwines their fingers. “Eventually we’re gonna run out of chances.” His voice is almost too low to hear.

Ash doesn’t ask chances for what. He doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. He reaches with his free hand, cupping the bristly side of Shorter’s head, his thumb stroking the curve of his ear. “I promised I would try,” he remembers, though years have passed since then. “I’m not sure I have.”

A spasm of shame shoots through Shorter. “That was a stupid thing for me to ask,” he says. “I don’t want you to try.” He hates the memory of his younger self, too preoccupied with his own desires to understand Ash’s. “I want you to want it, or else do without.”

“You’re asking me if I want it?” Ash’s voice isn’t steady. They haven’t had a conversation like this in so, so long. Shorter’s heart is pounding, terrified. He feels like something’s changed. Like Eiji made something change.

“I love you.” It’s not something they say to each other, and Shorter’s voice is a whisper, a plea, though he didn’t mean for it to be that. He wonders if this is all they’re allowed – that one awful night that left Ash dissociated and trembling, stuck halfway between longing and terror. “Whatever you need is fine. It’s better than fine –”

Ash leans close, presses his forehead to Shorter’s. His hair falls like a veil, curtaining them from the world. “I don’t know,” he confesses. “I want –” He falters, eyes closing, breath hitching, and Shorter knows that this time he hasn’t been imagining Ash’s desire. 

“It’s okay,” Shorter soothes, wrapping one hand around the back of Ash’s neck. _It’s okay to be scared,_ he wants to say. _It’s okay to want this despite that._ But even now, they aren’t good at being vulnerable.

“Eiji helps,” Ash admits. “With him, I’m not nervous.”

Shorter has seen it. When Eiji touches Ash, it looks almost careless. They speak without words: Eiji quirking an eyebrow or tilting his head just a fraction. Ash responds with a twist of the lips, a slow blink and then Eiji’s fingers are in his hair, his leg pressing against Ash’s thigh on the couch. They spend whole mornings like that, double planets unwilling or unable to break orbit.

“I don’t want to make you nervous.”

Ash almost laughs. “Nervous is just the start.” He puts a hand on Shorter’s chest, fingers curling into his shirt. “You make me want –” He breaks off, suddenly pressing his lips against Shorter’s for a brief, intense kiss.

“Yeah,” Shorter says afterward, his voice thick. “You make me want, too.”

 

Shorter’s hands are gentle. His mouth is slow. Already, everything about his body is familiar, yet this careful tenderness is new. “You’re different,” Eiji says against his ear.

Shorter pulls back to look Eiji in the eyes. “It might be the last time,” he says, a heaviness in his voice that Eiji’s never heard. 

It might be. Tomorrow they might all die.

He’s not scared – this surprises him. But Ash’s unwavering cool and Shorter’s lighthearted nihilism combine into a shockingly steady mood. Tomorrow will bring whatever it brings – he’s not brash enough to say he’s ready to die, but he is prepared to stay by Ash’s side, by Shorter’s, come what may. 

And now, with Shorter’s body heavy on his, the heat of breath on his throat, Eiji aches for Ash. He hates leaving Ash behind, even for a night. Especially this night. “I wish,” he begins against Shorter’s skin, but it’s too much to say out loud.

“Me, too,” he says. “But Ash…” 

Eiji knows. He understands, maybe even more than he should. But what he knows and what he longs for sticks and slips like a fault line, causing tremors.

They continue silently, the friction of their bodies in opposition to the slick wet of their mouths, and Eiji puts away his extracurricular yearning, concentrates on the boy in his arms.

Until the door creaks open.

He’s silhouetted against the hall light, the set of his shoulders uncertain. Eiji peers through the darkness, his heart seizing in hope and panic. “Ash.” The name is reflexive, hardly a whisper, and Ash is still. Watching.

“Let him,” Shorter murmurs. “He needs time.”

Eiji closes his eyes, tries to embrace the fantasy of the moment. Ash is _right there._ He wonders what he’s feeling, what Shorter must be feeling, the years between them, binding them and yet keeping them separate. And suddenly Eiji is a stranger in the room, an interloper. How can there be space between these two for him?

“Eiji.” Ash is there, his fingers hooking around a lock of Eiji’s hair. Eiji opens his eyes, startled breathless. 

Ash’s whole body asks a question. The bed creaks as he folds one leg beneath him, his eyes scared, but trusting. Trusting Eiji.

“Can I kiss you?” Eiji asks what Ash can’t. He closes his eyes when Ash’s mouth covers his. And when the kiss goes deep, when Ash leans so close his bare chest scalds Eiji’s skin, Eiji slides his arms up, pulling him down against him, for a moment forgetting to let Ash lead.

But then Shorter’s fingers are on Eiji’s skin and Ash’s hand is in Eiji’s hair, and he’s not sure who he’s kissing. The current between them is a high-voltage shock. Eiji cracks his eyes open to see their hands – Shorter’s and Ash’s – fiercely entwined on the pillow, and he is the superconductor between their bodies. They’re a closed system of trauma and history. And love.

It’s not perfect. Might never be. But it’s completely theirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might've noticed that each chapter had a scene from each boy's POV - Ash, then Shorter, then Eiji. Each section was exactly 500 words, too, which is part of why this story took me so long to write. Most scenes drafted far, far longer than the allotted word count, so I trimmed back, over and over until only the most necessary works were left - that might explain any peculiar phrasing. Anyway, it's an exercise I highly recommend, a surefire way to ensure each word packs as much punch as possible. 
> 
> I hope you liked my first (and possibly only) foray into Ash/Eiji/Shorter. It was hard for me to write - partly because I almost exclusively nestle my fics into the canonical timeline, and these three, sadly, got very, very little time. I feel like a true relationship would take longer than they were given. Also, I ship Ash/Eiji so hard that it was honestly very difficult for me to think of Shorter that way. But I wanted so much to try. 
> 
> Please let me know if my attempt was satisfying. :)


End file.
